Friday, June 19, 2015

Flying the Confederate flag today or putting it on a bumpersticker or on
your license plate, is racist.

Naming your sports team "the Redskins" is racist.

Lecturing black people about what "they" need to do to overcome
the toxic environment you and your ancestors created is racist.

Telling people who live in this country to "go back" anywhere -
especially a place they've never been - is racist.

Deliberately ignoring the evidence around you and insisting that this
country, its media, its culture, and its economy aren't racist is, in and of
itself, racist.

Defending every act of physical abuse and murder by white police officers
of a black person, regardless of age, gender, mobility status, health, size, or
disposition, is racist.

Mentioning how quickly your European ancestors assimilated, or learned the
language, or climbed from poverty (as if your Euro-American forebears faced the
same barriers as Latino/as and African Americans) is racist.

“The Current is Stronger’: Images of Racial Oppression and Resistance in
North Texas Black Art During the 1920s and 1930s ” in Bruce A. Glasrud
and Cary D. Wintz, eds., The Harlem Renaissance in the West: The New
Negroes’ Western Experience (New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis
Group, 2011)

“Dallas, 1989-2011,” in Richardson Dilworth, ed. Cities in American
Political History (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2011)

(With John Anthony Moretta and Keith J. Volanto), Keith J. Volonto and
Michael Phillips, eds., The American Challenge: A New History of the
United States, Volume II. (Wheaton, Il.: Abigail Press, 2012).

“Texan by Color: The Racialization of the Lone Star State,” in David Cullen
and Kyle Wilkison, eds., The Radical Origins of the Texas Right (College
Station: University of Texas Press, 2013).

He is currently collaborating, with longtime journalist Betsy Friauf, on a
history of African American culture, politics and black intellectuals in the
Lone Star State called God Carved in Night: Black Intellectuals in
Texas and the World They Made.

Followers

About Me

I received my Ph.D. in history from the University of Texas at Austin. My first book, "White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity and Religion in Dallas, 1841-2001," won the Texas State Historical Commission's T.R. Fehrenbach Award for best work on Texas history in 2007. My second book, "The House Will Come to Order: How the Texas Speaker Became a Power in State and National Politics" will be published by the University of Texas Press March 1, 2010.
My beautiful boy Dominic was born on May 30, 2003. He's an avid reader and loves Harry Potter and Star Wars.
I am a frustrated political liberal, holding Democrats in contempt but too suspicious about the competence of the Green Party to make the leap.
I am married to a wonderful woman named Betsy Friauf who was my editor at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram 20 years ago. We will be writing books together.
My only appointment television is "The Daily Show," "The Colbert Report" and "Countdown with Keith Olbermann." I also love to cook when I have the time.